With new members joining STRING in early 2018, the STRING secretariat has kick-started a line of road trips to visit new partners. The new members are: The City of Malmö, Region Halland and Region Västra Götaland in Sweden and Akershus County and Østfold County in Norway. The first visit was to Region Halland including a meeting with the region’s Growth Committee on 23 January.
Infrastructure, green development, culture, communication and tourism were on the agenda of the many meetings, Region Halland and STRING had planned for the day at former hospital and now administrative building of Region Halland in Halmstad.
Chairman of the Regional Executive Board in Halland, Mats Eriksson, welcomed Jacob Vestergaard, Managing Director of STRING to Halland and stressed the exciting possibilities for Halland to have an international forum to lift Halland’s priorities within infrastructure, sustainable growth and culture – a perspective following Halland’s tradition of thinking both-and rather than either-or.
Chairman of the Growth Committee Dag Hultefors, who will be a member of STRING’s Political Forum, agreed in the possibilities the STRING network will open for Halland and stated:
– OECD points in its report “Territorial Review Megaregion of Westerns Scandinavia” to the importance of building interregional partnerships to accomplish dynamic and sustainable growth, and mentions STRING.
– Through our new membership in STRING we’ll gain new opportunities to develop joint political agendas, to initiate projects together and develop sustainable growth in a global world where it is strategically important to join alliances with both neighbouring regions as well as nationally and internationally, and this is fully in line with the Growth Strategy’s priorities, said Dag Hultefors, Chairman of the Regional Executive Board’s Growth Committee in Halland.
